When the tap runs, what else comes with it?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has opened a new scientific study meant to sharpen the nation’s grasp of “potential pollutants in drinking water.” The agency is not only hunting the usual suspects. Traces of chemical abortion drugs have now been added to the watch list.
“We have heard loud and clear that Americans are concerned about potential unknown pollutants lurking in their drinking water,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. “The Trump EPA is committed to getting to the bottom of this, so that Americans can feel confident about the safety of their drinking water.”
For years, Students for Life of America (SFLA) has warned that abortion drugs may already be in the pipes. The fear is tied to the surge in at-home abortions, in which a vast number of women are instructed to flush their aborted babies down the toilet. What leaves the bathroom, SFLA argues, does not simply vanish.
The legal backbone of that argument is older than the current debate. In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Safe Drinking Water Act with a straightforward purpose: keep the public safe from contaminated tap water. SFLA says chemical abortion drugs are precisely the kind of contaminants the law was written to confront, and pressed the EPA to put mifepristone and misoprostol on the watch list. Congress and at least 14 state attorneys general soon made the same demand.
In mid-March, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) introduced the Clean Water for All Life Act, which would require abortion-pill distributors to give women medical waste collection kits when the drugs are prescribed. Later this summer, the journal Issues of Law & Medicine published a peer-reviewed study that found statistically significant levels of mifepristone in tap water in three American cities. And researchers who worked with SFLA and the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute tested treated and untreated water and found traces of the drug in both.
“Americans have a right to know what is in the water they drink,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr said. “EPA is going to search for pharmaceuticals, PFAS, and other contaminants that have gone undetected—and give Americans the truth about what is in their water.”
SFLA called the EPA announcement a “victory for common sense.” President Kristan Hawkins said the fact that the EPA “listened to the voices of thousands of Americans worried about the levels of fertility-crushing pharmaceuticals in the water is a victory for common sense. You don’t have to be pro-life to want crystal-clear drinking water.”
“While we are still working for mandated, ongoing testing, this scientific study is an exciting first step,” Hawkins added. “The loss of life from chemical abortion pills begins with babies killed in the womb and sometimes even extends to their mothers. Abusers and pill pushers, an emerging abortion cartel, love the quick sale of deadly pills, but the fallout may go even further as women trying to get pregnant and endangered species suffer from endocrine disruptors in our drinking water. This testing is vital to determine water safety.”
The agency framed the work as both investigative and reassuring, stating, “EPA’s state-of-the-art study will shed light on this issue and complement the actions we are already taking under the Safe Drinking Water Act. What we learn will provide clarity and peace of mind while guiding the agency’s continued efforts to Make America Healthy Again.”
